


Foolish Enough

by tjstar



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse Prevented, Dreams and Nightmares, Drug Addiction, Fainting, Fights, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, No Incest, Past Lives, Police, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reincarnation, Sibling Bonding, Withdrawal, dave is a police officer and klaus is his detainee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-07 23:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18883735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjstar/pseuds/tjstar
Summary: “Those roarin’ sixties, we were so damn in love.”





	Foolish Enough

A set of rusty metal bars in front of Klaus looks rather appealing. He can even take a risk and try to squeeze himself through the gap between them, because come on, a few dislocated joints is not something he can’t handle.

“I told you it was a bad idea,” Ben says.

“Oh right,” Klaus rubs his skinned knuckles. “Should’ve listened to you,” he adds humorlessly. “Maybe one day I’ll start learning from my mistakes.”

This is not the first time he’s ended up getting locked up in a jail along with his temporary foes; but this is the first time he’s ended up there since the Apocalypse _didn’t happen._ Five’s got the equations wrong again, they couldn’t start their new mission right from their teenage years. They could only get back to the day _before_ the Apocalypse — Vanya didn’t start it, Allison didn’t get her throat slit, because Leonard died in a car accident the storm caused, so the problem had just solved itself since they’d been warned already. Now they should be training their grieving sister as a bunch of good siblings, to teach her to control her newfound powers just like Klaus wanted. That was a good take, Ben said.

And then Klaus relapsed.

It’s been four more weeks in the Apocalypse-never-happened world, four more weeks of failed attempts to conjure Dave, and Klaus lost his last hope. Ben couldn’t change his minds either, because getting drugs is an easy deal if you’ve spent nearly a half of your life doing so. Weed and booze instead of a dinner, a baggie with pills packed inside in case he needs more; Ben stopped disappearing during Klaus’ trips a while ago, maybe this can count as the improvement of their common powers.

“We need to get out,” Ben paces across the cell nervously. “They should offer you a call. What if Diego doesn’t have friends at this police station?”

Klaus leans back to a concrete wall.

“Then he’s gonna have to put on his kinkiest outfit and come over to lay his charms all over the officers.”

He’s sitting on the floor in the corner since the benches are taken by the two bikers he’s been fighting with, typical ones with beards and tattoos and shovel-like hands. Klaus doesn’t even remember the case they started to argue about, but the damage was impressive. A shattered glass door of a market, screeching sirens of the cars in the parking lot, and blood spurting out of the guy’s mouth — Klaus is pretty sure his fist had knocked out his tooth, but he didn’t have time to apologize. They still didn’t take him seriously, they didn’t like his appearance, and they clearly didn’t expect _that scrawny junkie_ to stand up for himself. It’s good that they didn’t meet Five instead, otherwise none of them would stay alive.

Police car was rather quick, to Klaus’ chagrin. Or maybe he should be taking this as an act of salvation after _finally_ getting his head slammed against the asphalt. Twice. He convinces himself that he just slipped, because it was raining hard.  

Klaus touches his damp temple with his hair sticking to the cut, his fingertips are all red and sticky; he hasn’t checked himself in a mirror yet, but he’s sore all over.

“How are you doing?”

“How _do you think_ I’m doing, Ben?”

His system has never been resilient to any drugs, and after the break he’s taken his hangover hits him even harder. The lights are too annoying, the noises ignite the flares of pain in his skull, and Ben keeps roasting him for being such a rookie.

“You’re gonna go to jail, Klaus.”

“Optimistic as always, Ben.”

Klaus chuckles when the man on the bench lifts his head up.

“You,” he groans out. “Yes, _you._ I don’t know who the fuck is Ben, but I’m craving to kick his ass already.”

“He’s been talking to himself all night long,” another biker barks out. “This freak is creeping me out.”

Klaus massages his rigid shins and suddenly giggles, drawing more attention.

“Do you like tentacles?” he addresses this to both of them. “Bet you do.”

“Fucker,” the man spits on the floor.

Klaus shrugs carelessly.

“From time to time.”

“They’re scared of you,” Ben comments. “Well done.”

Klaus is almost sober, it terrifies him again; this building is a shelter for random ghosts wandering the hallways and cells; they follow Klaus step to step, hollow eyes peered at him, they’re goggling and begging for help ruthlessly. He’s been waving them away for hours, all of them except Ben who isn’t bothered by that at all. Klaus curls into himself on the floor and tries to fall asleep and let the time flow; he’s dozing off when there’s a hand grabbing his shoulder, a rough “get up” command, and then he’s pulled up to his feet against his will.

“Morning, sunshine,” a cop scoffs.

“He’s stoned. How could he even beat them up? They’re twice bigger than him,” his partner fake-wonders.

They’re talking about Klaus as if he’s invisible, a piece of trash in a weird outfit.

“Can I have a cup of coffee, at least?” he grins just to piss them off. “Or green tea? Also, it’s kinda cold here, and you guys don’t seem so caring about that... ”

The guards don’t let him finish, ramming him against the wall so harshly he barely manages to turn his head to the side not to get his nose broken.

“Chain him the fuck up,” another detainee grumbles. “Feral lunatics like him shouldn’t be roaming the streets freely.”

Klaus smooches the air.

“Best compliment ever.”

“Let’s go,” the man drags Klaus towards the bars. “Officer Katz is waiting.”

“K-katz?” Klaus stummers out, tripping over his own shoes. He must’ve misheard them, his messed up brain is always tricking him.

They ignore his astonishment, leading him down a narrow corridor; Klaus’ heart keeps hammering in his throat, and his hands keep trembling, pinned behind his back. He squints his eyes when they shove him into the small, might-cause-claustrophobia room where he’s supposedly gonna get asked embarrassing questions and do embarrassing things.

“He’s got no ID, but he calls himself Klaus,” one of the cops reports, pushing Klaus towards the chair.

 _Katz_ stands next to the windowsill, and Klaus can’t identify him with the rays of sunlight pouring from behind his back, swaddling him with the veil of a white glowing. It’s suddenly too hard to breathe, all of Klaus’ receptors must be dead after months of snorting coke, but he feels the smell of coffee and shaving gel. The man comes out of the light to greet his colleagues, and Klaus sees his face clearly.

No way, he thinks as his giddiness increases. He vaguely hears a worried _are you alright?_ before his body thuds against the floor; the world is turned upside down in seconds.

And then, there’s a welcoming embrace of a blackout.

 

***

There’s a hand stroking his cheek, gently, too opposite from the smacks across the face he used to get after passing out. Outlines of his surroundings are a little blurred as Klaus comes to, he finds himself lounge in the chair in the interrogation room with officer Katz caressing his bruised jawline, then wiping his palm on his uniform. Klaus can’t avert his eyes, paralyzed, with his mouth agape.

“Please, please, tell me your name is Dave,” his prayer comes out slurred. “Please, be Dave.”

“This is my name,” _Dave_ sounds amazed. “Do I know you?”

Yes. _Yes._

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Klaus’ hysterical laughter makes him double over and hug himself with his clammy hands. “Dave, your name is Dave Katz,” he keeps repeating it just to believe it.

Dave sits down onto the edge of the table and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Your face looks familiar.”

Klaus pulls his tired feet up right next to Dave’s thigh.

“Doubt it.”

He’s been waiting for so long, but now he feels just bitter. This is still Dave, with his sincere smile and with a confusion in his eyes, but it’s not _his_ Dave anymore. The Umbrella Academy screwed up the timeline again, and now the man Klaus loves the most is the one to possibly lock him up in a jail for drug possession or send him to a shitty rehab and keep him there till the end of his life.

Dave observes him for a little too long, glance mainly focused on the lacing of Klaus’ tight leather pants.   

“You punched the officer.”

“God, of course I did,” Klaus rolls his eyes. “He slapped my ass.”

Dave taps his fingers against the desk.

“He was just searching for drugs in your pockets.”

“I _don’t_ have pockets on my ass, okay? So let him flaunt that shiner and call it a night.”

Klaus doesn’t mean to snarl, he’s just irritated and upset; he’s been dealing with a nauseating sobriety for weeks just to conjure Dave’s ghost, but now he’s actually talking to him on the the land of the living ones. With that, Klaus wants to be as straightforward as possible since he’s got nothing to lose anyway.

“Do you believe in reincarnation?”

“You know _something,_ don’t you?” Dave strikes him back.

 _“Oh, right, I accidentally travelled back in time where I found you, and also my sister was about to crack the Moon,”_ this is what Klaus thinks. But this might be too shocking for Dave’s fragile psyche, so Klaus bites his tongue.

He says,

“Tell me.”

This is still an interrogation, but they have switched their roles.

“I’m seeing these dreams,” Dave starts, staring at his intertwined fingers. “No, nightmares,” he pauses. “No. Flashbacks,” he swallows hard. “About Vietnam war, about soldiers screaming in agony and dying on the battlefield, and there are helicopters, explosions, and that _weirdo_ in a helmet and with a smudged mascara — just like you now, and…”

“That’s the eyeliner,” Klaus corrects him quickly. “They had surprisingly good ones in 1968, but I digress. Continue,” he clamps his palm over his mouth not to let Dave see how badly his lips are wobbling. “Please.”

Dave looks up at the ceiling, zoning out. He’s not the only one who’s getting _flashbacks._

“That guy would say same stuff, I swear. His name was Klaus. He was so _misguided,_ and funny, and handsome, and I was foolish enough…”

“To follow him all the way to the front line,” Klaus finishes for him.

Dave can’t find the right words, waving his hands in the air as if he’s drowning.

“How did you?.. Just… I was going to…”

“Yeah,” Klaus nods. “I know.”

“This is impossible,” Dave casts another glance over Klaus’ frame. “Who are you? In my dreams Klaus was, I mean, _you…_ You were a messenger? My guardian angel? The bullets were whistling so badly, and it hurt so badly, but we could make it through. Together.”

Dave’s speech rips Klaus’ soul to bleeding shreds, he can barely brace himself to ask,

“Have you ever been shot?”   

Dave’s face turns as gray as these walls. Klaus is afraid that he might faint too.

“Four months ago,” Dave nearly whispers. “A bank robbery. I took a bullet right in between my shoulder blades, and it flew out of my chest, almost rupturing my heart. A month and a half of a rehabilitation, and that’s why I’m keeping my ass in the office now,” he sighs. “My boss thinks I’m still too weak to patrol the streets. And now… you just appear out of nowhere, all beat up and sassy.”

Klaus buries his face in his arms; that fateful night has carved itself in his memory, Dave’s hot blood coating his palms and Dave’s body growing colder and colder. He experienced that in both 1968 and 2019, what a sick luck.

“Do you hear this, Ben? Am I insane?”

“You are, but he’s one second away from proposing you,” Ben chuckles. _“Sassy._ Don’t scare him away, Klaus.”

Klaus and Ben have never talked about Dave’s death so Ben is a little… disoriented with all the twists their conversation takes. He wasn’t anywhere around in Vietnam; he hadn’t been born back then, but that was rather unsettling. And Klaus simply couldn’t drink that much so he had to talk to the ghosts all the time, and only _Dave_ could keep him grounded and safe in their tent with the world around them burning and shedding bloody tears. Klaus was forced to remember all the information he knew about wars, about his father’s lessons, about guns and combat stuff. It helped, it really saved his life although he couldn’t project his skills on Dave.

Maybe this is his second chance.

There’s no ring on Dave’s ring finger, at least.

“That guy, Klaus,” Dave trails off. “I mean. My dreams… My _visions,_ they’re horrifying, and he’s the only one who makes them bearable. Is it even possible to fall in love with a figment of your imagination?”

Klaus chokes on his saliva and nearly coughs his lungs up all over the table.

“I suppose?” he wheezes out.

“Congratulations, Klaus soon-to-be-Katz,” Ben claps his hands, then throwing his clenched fists up. “He’s head over heels in love with you, head over heels, I swear!”

Well, this is the support he needed.

“What a great opportunity to finally get rid of dear Papa’s last name,” Klaus mumbles, realizing that Dave only hears a half of his and Ben’s dialogue. “I’m not flirting, but,” he blurts out. “Those roarin’ sixties, we were so damn in love.”

With that, he pulls the dog tags from underneath his striped top and brings them up to Dave’s nose so he can read his name and his blood type engraved on them. This works better than a hundred words, because Dave understands everything at once — he doesn’t call Klaus a stalker or a maniac, doesn’t punch him just scanning the dog tags with his gaze.

“I wish I could’ve saved yours,” he says.

“That war took your life,” Klaus shoves the tags back into his collar. “Your _past_ life, but that was a tragedy.”

Dave lets out a strangled laughter, short and nervous, as if he’s battling a breakdown.

“So, you’ve reincarnated as well? Oh God, Klaus. Hope we’re gonna share a ward in a nuthouse if we go crazy.”

“Or just share a… House.”

Klaus can’t help himself, this situation seems so unreal; he’s been dreaming about having a decent conversation with Dave yet he’s never been actually ready for that. He’s too scared to close his eyes and open them again, because Dave might just disappear, and Klaus might just wake up in an ambulance car with an oxygen mask strangling him.

But it doesn’t happen.  

“I’m so into it, to be honest,” Dave twists the pen between his fingers. “Sixties. Best music and fashion style ever,” he smiles wistfully. “It feels like I’ve known you for a thousand years.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna offer you a drink once I’m out of the prison,” Klaus smirks. “One of your pals found my magic pills.”

Dave winks at him.

“What pills? I didn’t see anything, and neither did he. It’s settled, trust me.”

“Oh,” Klaus blinks a sudden wave of dizziness away. “So you’re not gonna sue me? Or like, punish me?”

“We can talk about punishments… Later,” Dave blushes at the double meaning of the words he’s just said.

Klaus still can’t breathe freely, ignoring a painful contracting of his chest.

“Yeah, I’m not in a festive mood at the moment,” he jokes sourly and suppresses a gag reflex with his fist.

Dave’s eyes fill up with concern.

“Anything I can do to ease it?”

“Probably just turn away if I puke.”

Klaus is breaking out into a cold sweat and sheds his coat off, hanging it on the back of his chair. His brain is snapping in and out like a defective lighter; there’s a calloused palm brushing over the tattoo on his bare shoulder.

“Sky soldiers,” Dave reads out loud. “So you’re a true vet.”

“I got a tattoo dedicated to you on my stomach,” Klaus is about to lift his top up, but he’s still hesitant and dope sick. “I can show it, but maybe later, huh.”

They’re not alone here. Although Klaus is used to Ben’s constant surveillance, there are other ghosts crowding in the corner of the interrogation room, all victims, with their blown-up brains ruining their haircuts.

“You,” Klaus turns to most maimed one. “Lay your shit on me and fuck off.”

He’s too jaded to contact with the dead, but they never leave his sober self alone. Klaus looks right through Dave as the man with only a half of his face opens his distorted mouth. Klaus struggles to keep his stomach’s contents on its place, listening to the story that mostly consists of just gurgling sounds, but he hears the name of the murderer clearly.

“James Hendrickson,” Klaus utters and drops his head onto his folded hands on the table. “He killed that stockbroker, good ol’ Sam, and set his corpse on fire, but something went wrong. I hope it’s enough.”

He knows that Dave might not enjoy this scene from his perspective, but he just wants to be done with the task a ghost throws at him.

“How did you know?!” Dave exclaims, grabbing a notepad and scribbling something down on it. “We were _so close,_ but we didn’t have enough evidences to get that bastard Hendrickson. But how…”

“I’m talking to him now,” Klaus replies. “To Sam, I mean. Oh, he’s left.”

He’s glad to find out that the other ghosts decided to reschedule their seance. Ben is the only spirit in the room; he looks out of the window and says,

“Diego’s car is parked round the corner.”

“Oh, great.”

Now they have just a few minutes before Diego would go rampage in the hall and lynch everyone for detaining Klaus.

“What?” Dave squeezes Klaus’ shoulder again.

“My brother’s here to pick me up,” Klaus explains. “Won’t be happy to find out that I’m going through the withdrawal… Again. And also the fight with those pricks…” he licks his dry lips. “Shit. Can I go now?”

He doesn’t want to leave Dave again, but staying at the police station would lead to terrible consequences.

“I’ll show you the back door,” Dave nods. “And… Would you like to meet me at six? Today, if it’s okay with your _condition?_ I feel like we’ve got a lot of stuff to discuss. Like your extraordinary detective skills.”

“I feel pretty much same,” Klaus gets up off the chair and bunches up his coat. “But I don’t kiss on the first date, _em yêu*.”_

Dave takes Klaus’ HELLO hand.

“We don’t have to rush.”

This new timeline is _their_ reward.

The world was worth to be saved.

**Author's Note:**

> *my love  
> \---  
> again, why not?


End file.
